On June 28, 2005, four Navy SEALs scouted terrorist Ahmad Shah in Afghanistan.

The mission was compromised when locals spotted the group, and a force of at least 50 enemy troops surrounded the men on three sides.

Trying to make contact with headquarters, Michael Murphy exposed himself to transmit the call. While being fired on, Murphy contacted Bagram Air Base, provided the unit's location and size of the enemy attack. He and two other SEALs eventually died from injuries, and 16 additional troops were killed in a helicopter sent to extract the four SEALs, but Murphy's act saved the fourth SEAL, Marcus Luttrel.

On Memorial Day, sailors on the U.S.S. Michael Murphy will remember him and honor other servicemen and women by running a satellite Bolder Boulder at Hickam Air Force Base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

U.S.S. Michael Murphy Command Master Chief Matthew Danforth said he and others on the ship were honored that people in Boulder thought of the ship on Memorial Day.

"I want to thank them for their patriotism," Danforth said. "It's not the norm for us to feel honored and to be thanked. This is one way that the people of Boulder are thanking us by asking us to participate in this. To see such patriotism is overwhelming at times."

On that 2005 day in Afghanistan, Coloradan Danny Dietz was another of the four SEALs killed by enemy forces. A statue of Dietz now sits at Berry Park in his hometown of Littleton.

The ship is undergoing some repairs and upgrades, so instead of running on deck, the 80 runners will run on land along the harbor.

In Boulder, race organizer Cliff Bosley said race staff boxed up 3,000 T-shirts and bib numbers to send to the various satellite races this year. Kids from the Bolder Boulder racers program wrote letters to the servicemen and women, which Bosley sent along with a letter for University of Colorado President Bruce Benson.

"For those servicemen and women who cannot be at the Bolder Boulder because they're deployed overseas, it's a nice extension that they can run a Bolder Boulder somewhere in the Middle East or elsewhere on the same day and have that experience," Bosley said. "It's a connection back to the U.S., and it is a morale-building experience."

Command career counselor Adam Lubbock, who joined the Navy in 2003 out of Visalia, Calif., said it's not often he and other sailors reflect on what they're doing for the country.

"(Memorial Day) gives you a chance to reflect and think about what you do on a daily basis, and those who have before you and have sacrificed," Lubbock said. "You think about how thankful you are for those people to be able to walk the streets every day."

Kayla Johnson grew up down the street from the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland. She'd never really considered joining the Navy until one day in high school, she woke up and decided she wanted to serve.

She's the ship's training officer, and though she's a swimmer by nature, 25-year-old Johnson said she's been trying to run more and more.

"We're all really thrilled," she said. "I've never experienced something like this before. A bunch of us are excited the (Bolder Boulder) included us and we're able to be a part of what they're doing even though we're so far away."

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